


beside me in the shallow water

by quodem (isoneph)



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - War, F/F, Heavy Angst, too much for kimsoul tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 07:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12476472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isoneph/pseuds/quodem
Summary: The war is something Jinsoul's never gotten used to, as much as she'd like to think so.





	beside me in the shallow water

Blood.  
  
The air is thick with the smell of it, mixing with the haze and smoke of gunpowder from endless shells and cannonballs fired.  
  
Jinsoul herself limps wearily back to her cohort's designated base, she's scuffed up and sore with mud all over her but otherwise fine.  
  
She trudges past a sinkhole, near the edge of the clearing by the woods, boots scuffing against the twigs and dead leaves. But Jinsoul comes back to look at the bottom of the hole.  
  
A girl lays face-down within it, and she's most likely dead. She wears the red uniform of the soldiers from the Republic, so Jinsoul feels no remorse and no pity for the her condition. She's about to turn away again, but before she can, some movement catches her eye.  
  
The fallen soldier's fingers are tapping, slowly, like the sleepy and unsure movements of someone who just woke up and doesn't know if they want to open their eyes yet or not. She grips the earth unsteadily and turns onto her side, coughing weakly as she does. Jinsoul subconsciously reaches for the handgun always hidden in her waistband.  
  
The Republic soldier's helmet tumbles off her head, and Jinsoul sees long blonde hair tied neatly in a bun. Her coughs turn into long, deep hacks as blood trickles from the side of her mouth. Only then does Jinsoul see the extent of the girl's injuries- her foot is twisted the wrong way, facing outward at an awkward angle, and a shard of something sticks out from in the grip of her closed first, dried blood from around the stab site blending in on her red uniform's coat. She's taken whatever it is out, a dumb move that made her bleed out faster.  
  
Jinsoul feels a sudden pang of sympathy, but tries her best to silence it.  
  
The girl looks up at Jinsoul, and the look in those eyes is of pure helplessness, and she has to admit she actually feels somewhat bad. She opens her mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a weak whisper interrupted by more hoarse coughing. Finally, the soldier manages something that can be understood.  
  
"Help."  
  
Jinsoul doesn't remember accepting her request or anything like that, but all she knows is that they've been marching slowly towards the Republic army's campground and this is exactly in the opposite direction of where Jinsoul needs to go. The soldier is slung over her shoulders, careful in not letting her broken ankle dangle too much. Eventually Jinsoul can see smoke from cooking fires at the camps, and despite her being in no condition to walk, she knows she has to let the girl go on her own- she's to be shot dead if seen.  
  
(Jinsoul doesn't know why she hasn't taken the girl out. The only good Red is a dead one.)  
  
"I'm sorry," Jinsoul starts, and she swiftly grabs a sturdy looking tree branch from the ground. The soldier understands her, and grips her tightly for support as she transfers her weight onto the stick she was offered. Jinsoul immediately walks away.  
  
Jinsoul decides that was enough gratitude to last a lifetime, and curses internally as she realizes her base is now twice as far away. She needs to make it back by-  
  
"Jungeun," the voice, feeble but deliberate, says. "My name."  
  
Jinsoul keeps walking.  
  
"Thank you,” Jungeun says, limping slowly in the opposite direction.  
  
"Don't-" Jinsoul starts, and stops herself because what can you even say to a soldier fighting against you, on the side that won't stop until you and everyone you love and care about are dead?  
  
"-don't die then, Jungeun."  
  
  
  
Her cohort leader, Haseul, is strangely overprotective of the girls under her command. Not in a leadership or bragging rights way, but in the same way a mother would take care of her own children. It makes sense too, they're the only all-female cohort in their whole division, because it was long ago that the Federation abolished its custom on male-only infantry and required female conscription as well.  
  
So when Jinsoul lets Haseul know that she's going out for a wash, she pesters for her to bring someone with her. Jinsoul should tell her that someone's coming with, but truly she's going alone and needs the time to clear her head.  
  
_The war is something Jinsoul's never gotten used to, as much as she'd like to think so, as much as she convinces herself that she has._  
  
She shuffles her feet slowly along the riverbed, change of clothes in hand. It's a sticky day, the summer heat sweltering and matting down hair, clothing, everything with a relentless precision. Jinsoul hopes that swimming in this tributary isn't popular with other soldiers, and luckily the bend of the river is empty.  
  
The water is relentlessly swift and the temperature bites at her toes, but it successfully manages to take her mind off the summer day. She eases in just enough to submerge, puts her guard down for a second.  
  
  
  
_Jinsoul remembers the exact day she was drafted._  
  
_She was headed back to her family's dwelling from a day of conservatory, where dancing classes had worn her down to the bone. She loves it though – the Federation's entertainment business was risky but stable once you were chosen. Jinsoul didn't think too highly of herself, but she kept at it, training longer and harder than anyone else in the program._  
  
_The door was unlocked – unusual, but Jinsoul brushed it off as someone's forgetfulness, her parents had left for an overnight business trip to the capitol that morning. As she walked down the main hall, she felt uneasy, and then there was the note, clear as day in the middle of the living-room's electronic bulletin that the government used to deliver announcements._

  
  
**_JUNG JINSOUL | ID #19024843 DOB 19970613_**  
**_CURRENT SCHEDULED LOCATION: 23:00 LESIURE TIME_**  
  
**_UNSCHEDULED ALERT. REPORT TO LOCAL CONSCRIPTION OFFICE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. DRAFT #49835._**

  
  
_Draft #49835. That wasn't possible, this isn't..._  
  
_Still in shock, Jinsoul took her bike and headed to the conscription office in the town hall. There, the secretary of affairs took her ID and rifled through the system. Jinsoul tapped her foot worriedly against the worn linoleum floor, looked at the woman's unreadable expression, and decided to take out her phone to call her parents – who knew when she'd ever see them again. Her finger was right over the dial button when she snapped to attention._  
  
_“That won't be necessary,” she cuts Jinsoul off, gently reaching over the desk to receive Jinsoul's phone. “We'll contact your family for you, they'll understand.”_  
  
_Jinsoul knows they'll understand, it's a horror story that's decided to hit them now – lottery conscription, and their daughter was handed the winning ticket. It was a risky move in the first place, but their status allowed them to buy Jinsoul a little more time instead of getting sent to the military, mandatory service at 18 years old._  
  
“ _We'll be able to skip your physical because of your training background, and we have your updated records already from the dance academy. Tonight, we'll allow you to return home to pick up your possessions and to say goodbye to friends. Unfortunately, the war effort is dire and as much time as possible is needed to get you to complete training.”_  
  
_Her words sound like an automated greeting – cheap, false, hollow, but Jinsoul finds solace in them. She says goodbye to the few friends she has, tries to sneak a phone call to her parents, and when that fails she writes a note and sticks it to the bulletin. Jinsoul hopes it'll be enough, but either way she doesn't get much sleep that night._  
  
_Her life when she enters training turns into mental strengthening, endurance training, hostage scenarios, shooting a gun, and most importantly the affirmation of the knowledge that the Republic is scum and must be stopped. The only thing she pays attention to is the weight of the Federation's uniform on her shoulders – blue, blue, blue._  
  
_Blue means good, but the only good Red is a dead one._  
  
_It gets to the point where she's so starved of mental joy that she imagines those fuckers in red uniforms, and imagines putting tens of bullet holes right through them, collapsing like the training dummies she shoots at point blank. She gains all of her happiness from imagining the deaths of others. And soon enough Jinsoul becomes numb, dulled over just like the rest of them – a master at sacrificing herself, who she was, for the death of others._  
  
_Jinsoul gets her hair dyed blonde – it's an impulse decision, and the stylist at the shop she sneaks out to says nothing as she removes her helmet and slaps her government allowance on the counter as pay. She looks in the mirror after the bleach is set and she's rinsed and dried – she looks good, but that's not what she's going for._  
  
_It's because Jinsoul wants to look less and less like what she used to be._  
  
  
  
_She's sent to her first battle two months after conscription, on a battlefield with a cloudless sky overhead, the sun beating down on them in the late afternoon. She only pays attention to the ranks beside and in front of her, and she feels nothing as she snaps her rifle forwards – it doesn't even register when she's moved up to front rank and she's reloaded twice already._  
  
_Jinsoul sees red uniforms and fires until they all lay dead on the ground._  
  
  
  
  
She's eventually transferred back to base, and the first thing she does when she heads back to her barracks is to look at the fresh uniform folded neatly on her bed. Royal blue coat, hat, white pants. Black shoes. So entirely different from the Republic's red, yet familiar at the same time. Jinsoul shrugs the feeling off.  
  
“Hey,” someone calls from down the hallway. The owner of the voice sticks her head around the corner of the bunks. She half skips, half walks down.  
  
“Yerim,” Jinsoul says, a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “What're you doing here?”  
  
Choi Yerim was Jinsoul's favorite freshman back at the dance conservatory. To see her here is a shock, so maybe she was paying her a visit? Unlikely, but Jinsoul was popular enough...  
  
Yerim picks at the comforter of the top bunk. “Unnie..... I got drafted. It was on my bulletin when I got home, I reported today.”  
  
_No._  
  
The smile drops off Jinsoul's face almost immediately. She feels the color draining from her face.  
  
“What?” Jinsoul shakes her head, picking at the pillowcase on her bed. “No, Yerim, go home. This isn't a good place for you.”  
  
“But I can't just-”  
  
“Go,” Jinsoul says, a little more harshly this time, teeth clenched because she doesn't know what to say or even how to say it.  
  
Yerim looks as puzzled as ever. She awkwardly drops her bag on the floor, next to the ladder.  
  
“I'm in the army now, unnie, they put me in the fifth cohort. I thought it would be better since I could be with you.”  
  
Jinsoul doesn't respond. After what feels like a while, she draws in a shaky breath and says one thing.  
  
“Why couldn't they have taken someone else?”  
  
  
Yerim grows and she trains just as hard, if not harder than Jinsoul did. Over the course of weeks she sees Yerim harden, an outer shell meant for everyone to see, a shell that enjoys knocking out people in practice, a persona that wants violence and doesn't hesitate, enjoys mauling red-clothed training dummies with her dagger.  
  
It's not enough, though. It never is. There's nothing the Federation can do past that kind of mental development, and even the best killing machines have to come to terrible ends.  
  
It's a foggy morning in the several weeks after Yerim's enlistment and it's like deja vu for Jinsoul. Exhausted, bloody (not her own blood this time) and overall feeling terrible as usual, she heads to the medical area inside the abandoned airplane hangar.  
  
When she turns the corner down the hall, it's chaos.  
  
The mixed smell of sterility, blood, and metal is in the air, and pained screams echo around the dimly lit fluorescent chamber in all directions. Jinsoul immediately feels more nauseous than before, but that becomes nothing when she sees what's happening in the corner station.  
  
Yeojin, one of the team medics for their cohort, is bent over a table of surgical instruments, frantically scrambling amongst the metal tools. She's too young, far too young for this environment, but isn't everyone? Haseul is there too, holding the hand of the girl on the table.  
  
Yerim.  
  
The new recruit is laying on her back on the metal table, fresh tear marks on her cheeks as she struggles weakly around the bundle of cloth placed in her mouth to muffle her screaming. She's pale and finally Jinsoul sees the cause of her pain; through her torn fatigues are bullet holes and drenched blood. Blood is everywhere. And she rushes up to her side immediately.  
  
“Can't you knock her out first?” Jinsoul asks, surveying Yerim's condition, voice shrill. Yeojin panics even more as she responds to the captain.  
  
“We've run out of general anesthesia, ether too.” The young doctor locates a pair of forceps and doesn't hesitate at all to dig the instrument into Yerim's leg, without as much as an apology. Yerim's eyes shoot open and Jinsoul internally cringes as Yeojin rotates the forceps.  
  
“I'm... there was no exit path, I'm so sorry Yerim but this is gonna hurt even more,” she says, and Yerim sobs uncontrollably, her hand a vice grip with Haseul's.  
  
“Jinsoul, roll up her pant leg.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Do it, tell me if her skin is grey or not.” Jinsoul does it, and when she rolls up Yerim's cuff, she sees that her right ankle is starting to become ash-colored, paler than the surrounding tissue.  
  
“It's like... really pale? It doesn't look normal.”  
  
Yeojin curses through gritted teeth, as she gives one final movement and the bullet makes its way out with a soft _ding_ into the medical bowl. “I didn't _think_ it hit her femoral, I still don't think it did... but how did she lose so much blood? Haseul, give me that bandage over there.” Yeojin quickly works to fashion a bandage, muttering under her breath.  
  
Jinsoul notices that Yerim's gone slack in her grip, unconscious. “Is she...”  
  
“Unconscious, yeah. In shock, no, at least not yet. I didn't have enough time when they hauled her in here after we were ordered to retreat.” The look in the young doctor's eyes is menacing, as she gives Yerim a one-over. “Those dirty Reds, did this to her.. to everyone else...”  
  
“Is she gonna be okay?”  
  
“If she doesn't get infected, at best it'll be weeks before she gets on her feet again.”  
  
But as it turns out, Yerim doesn't get on her feet again.  
  
When they're transported back to the military base, Jinsoul visits her in the hospital wing every day when she has time. For the first week, Yerim is awake, talking with her, albeit weakly. Slowly, her strength drains, until most of the time Yerim is sleeping when Jinsoul comes around.  
  
It's halfway through the second week when it all goes to hell. Yeojin pulls her aside one evening, when Yerim is asleep, looking feverish and even more pale than usual.  
  
The scans hang on the wall. It's advanced imagery, stuff Jinsoul never got to attend school for, but she understands what's happening when Yeojin points to a hole in a thick black line.  
  
“It hit her in one of the smaller arteries,” Yeojin says, speaking slowly as if explaining to a small child. Jinsoul nods. Yeojin draws a large, dashed circle around the rest of the lines, where the area between them is shaded in darker than the rest of the scan.  
  
“That's the part that's infected.”  
  
“No?” Jinsoul questions. “But she'll be okay, even if it's bad?”  
  
Yeojin turns gravely to Jinsoul, looking at her in the face. “We don't.. here we don't have anything here to treat a blood infection that severe with. Even if we did, it's almost certain that it'll spread too quickly for us to figure out what to do with it.”  
  
  
The next morning, Jinsoul hears from Vivi, that Yerim was dead. And there was nothing anyone could have done to save her.  
  
Jinsoul puts on a brave face, a shell for the rest of the day. And when she's alone in her barracks, she cries into her pillow like a little girl, without the energy to hate the Red soldier who took away one of her only friends, one of the only reasons to stay alive in this bleak, war-torn world. She attends the funeral and when she's staring at the casket, she mourns over the last words she never got to say.  
  
_Why couldn't they have taken someone else?_  
  
  
  
  
The apartment block out by the border is a place Jinsoul breaks off to, when they send on her on her four days' leave for midsummer holiday. Her home is no longer her home, so she can't go back. Through the mail her parents tell her that their house was sold out to a new couple, and that they live in the capitol now. She can't muster the desire to go visit them, at least not right now.  
  
She's guaranteed a room in the apartments for her duties, serving in the armed forces. For the first day, all she does is curl up in the barely-furnished bed, staring at the wall and sleeping when she can.  
  
And thinking sullenly about the lack of Choi Yerim.  
  
On the second day, she drags herself to the shower, and cleans up enough to look presentable. She takes her pack and some food, and heads to the reserve.  
  
The reserve is technically a barricaded area, forbidden and illegal for citizens of the Federation to cross into. It's what separates the Western border of the Federation and the Republic. Jinsoul knows it's an area for illegal poaching and hunting (she knows, she's done it before), but she can claim official business if she's ever stopped.  
  
But really, she's only looking to clear her mind.  
  
She follows the packed dirt trail for some time, still in the early morning, and veers off of it around what she knows is a range of hills surrounding a ravine. She pops open her compass and starts navigating the southern side, like she always used to do when she was a student wanting to get away.  
  
Jinsoul gets to the top when it's high noon. She throws her pack down onto the ground, against a tree, and sees something she'd never expect to see across from her.  
  
A girl with blonde hair sits, looking out across the gorge and to the sea in the far distance. She wears a red coat, with her back facing Jinsoul. She's wearing headphones and seems to have brought nothing, noticing nothing of Jinsoul's arrival.  
  
_Red?_  
  
The first thing Jinsoul does is reach for the pistol hidden in her waistband – nope, that's only in her uniform and she's not wearing that, just her plainclothes. So she holds an old branch in front of her like a mace, slowly approaching her until she's standing in front of the girl, blocking the sunlight. Only then does she look up, and Jinsoul becomes more confused than ever. It's a familiar face, one from months ago where she did something she ought not to. It's the Republican soldier who almost bled out in a ditch, the one she helped up and led back to her camp.  
  
What was her name? Jungah? Junghyun?  
  
“Jungeun?”  
  
Jungeun looks equally as confused. “You?”  
  
“What're you doing here?”  
  
“Trying to get away from people.” Jungeun sits cross-legged now, bringing her legs out of their tucked position. She's still hunched over, though, and she looks at Jinsoul with a bright, probing stare.  
  
“You're not supposed to be in here, it's restricted territory.”  
  
“To you,” Jungeun counters smartly, “To the Republic, this is our land.”  
  
Jinsoul could kill her. It's what she could do, should do, she should wound her and push her off the edge of the ravine, with no one being the wiser. There isn't a single person out for at least a few miles around. But she takes what her mind knows and shoves it down into a tiny corner, and she follows her heart instead, sitting down next to Jungeun.  
  
“Aren't you supposed to be in the front lines?”  
  
“Medical leave,” Jungeun sighs, picking at the grass beneath her feet. “I've been home for a while. I went back, but I had a fit and they sent me back a week ago.”  
  
“A... fit?”  
  
“I had some kind of psycho attack when they sent me out again. They didn't want me all crazy if it meant I'd go after my own teammates. The medical team blamed it on my trauma, but I don't remember much...”  
  
“What actually happened?”  
  
“I started crying?” Jungeun refuses to meet Jinsoul's eyes, staring down at the ground instead. “My regiment leader said I tried to hurt her when she went to discipline me. And after that they say I was insane for two straight days, wandered the sick bay and kept crying for someone to help me.”  
  
“But you don't remember doing any of this.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Maybe your brain blocked it out because it was too painful?” Jinsoul suggests, trying to go for apathetic.  
  
“Maybe,” Jungeun says, “but I wish they'd just put me back in. Fighting lets me forget-”  
  
“-about everything else. I know,” Jinsoul says, and their eyes meet in the uncomfortable silence. It's more than that, it's because they both find solace in the things that drive the war effort - two soldiers on opposing sides, and here they are in impossible circumstances bonding over it.  
  
_Bonding?_ Gross. At least Jinsoul thinks it's a better word than friendship.  
  
Eventually, she learns many things about Jungeun - that she was pressured into service by her small town, because of her incredible family legacy; everyone, mother and father, grandparents, had served in a war, became war heroes. That the Republic treated Jungeun very well, that her show uniform is decorated with medals and merits, that she's only eighteen and that the country on the north side of the border isn't doing much better than the Federation, honestly.  
  
“I didn't know,” Jinsoul confesses. “The Republic's always good at their.... showcases?”  
  
Jungeun snorts, plucks the twigs at her feet and throws them off the edge. “Just say propaganda, unnie. It's okay.”  
  
Jinsoul feels the cracks in her shell starting to form. She hopes it will be enough to let Jungeun in - even if they're destined to be mortal enemies. She'll try.  
  
Talking with Jungeun is so natural- even in a situation like that. So she'll try her best – at whatever this is.  
  
  
  
She's in love. And she's too far gone when she realizes it.  
  
She keeps an old photograph of Jungeun in the inside front pocket of her formal uniform for good luck.  
  
It only gets worse for them as their thing progresses, and Jinsoul manages to sneak over to the edges of the Republic's camp at night to meet up with Jungeun, who gets readmitted to first line a few weeks later. She enjoyed cuddling with Jungeun at night, and she couldn't lie and say that the sole reason was for the warmth.  
  
Jinsoul's heart felt unusual in its place, beating to a foreign rhythm, one unrecognizable to her ever since she'd met Jungeun.  
  
Their first kiss was even worse for Jinsoul to bear, because right after it Jungeun had to run back across enemy lines, sneaking off the battlefield. She feels her absence, and it terrifies her because she can _feel_ it, when she's worked so hard to harden herself, to build a shell and forget.  
  
It was terrible for Jinsoul, but she couldn't let it go. And Jinsoul couldn't forget how _warm_ she was, how _alive_ she felt and how something resembling love bubbled under her veins and took complete control of her.  
  
It didn't just remind her, it _taught_ her for the first time what being alive really felt like.  
  
  
  
It's a chilled winter landscape outside, but it's nothing near romantic. Just ice, wilderness, and the bitter cold when Jinsoul's cohort marches through into the Republic's borders, orange evening sun glinting though the tops of pine trees. They break and make camp, and Haseul tells her to gather firewood.  
  
So Jinsoul's slinging her axe, again and again, wearily, blindly cutting off branches and stems. She looks up, and a dark figure moves behind a tree in the corner of her vision. She's immediately suspicious, and draws her pistol.  
  
“Hello?”  
  
She can't describe how surprised she is to see Jungeun peek around the corner, a devilish smile playing on the younger girl's lips. Her crimson red uniform is clean, helmet askew on her head, and she carries her rifle over her shoulder and a pack over the other.  
  
“Care to feast?” Jungeun tosses the pack to Jinsoul, who instinctively catches it. She draws it open and sees some smuggled snacks along with some supplies.  
  
“Ugh, you,” Jinsoul says, and she knows this whole thing is far past acceptable, but Jungeun is the little patch of sunlight that makes all her days easier to bear. So if she's too far gone, why not enjoy it?  
  
It's getting dark, and she knows that Haseul's expecting her back at camp anytime soon, but soon they're rolling around in the snow like little kids, Jungeun peppering kisses against the bridge of Jinsoul's nose and over her cheeks. The older girl laughs, pushes a pouting Jungeun off as she splits the snacks.  
  
“How did you even find me?”  
  
“We're out a couple miles due west,” Jungeun says, crinkling a wrapper into her coat pocket. “I wanted to go find a frozen stream or something on my break, but I ended up finding you instead.”  
  
“West?” Jinsoul quirks an eyebrow. “We're gonna keep heading north, you know. Are they gonna keep avoiding each other like this?  
  
It's only natural for the both of them to share battle plans, and tell each other secrets from the other side. But it's definitely uncomfortable, being as powerless as they are to stop the war.  
  
“Maybe, I don't know,” Jungeun sighs. “Besides, it's not like we can-”  
  
“-tell them to stop,” Jinsoul finishes, and there's a pregnant pause. Maybe some time, in another life, they'd be lovers in a world not torn permanently in half like this. Sometimes, Jinsoul thinks of life where she'd see herself and Jungeun in a normal light, maybe both studying at the same university, living in the same neighborhood. Going to national holiday festivals together, having the time to love and be loved. Just maybe, even getting married.  
  
(It's something they talk a lot about, and it only makes the both of them feel worse, imagining anything other than the situation they're in now.)  
  
“Jinsoul unnie?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Jungeun avoids meeting her eye, playing with the snow between them as a distraction. “I need to tell you something.”  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Months ago, I was in first line. I fired a shot, and I heard it miss and go farther into your ranks,” Jungeun starts, and Jinsoul can hear the shakiness in her voice as she keeps going. “I heard a girl cry and collapse.”  
  
“What are you trying to say?” Jinsoul frowns. “You did what you had to do, we know that.” Needless to say, they don't hold each other accountable for the other side.  
  
“No,” Jungeun says, weakly, and the color's drained from her face, and it's visible even though the sun's disappeared below the horizon and they can barely see each other. “When we retreated, I saw some others lift the girl onto a stretcher and hurry off site. She was bleeding from the leg,” and that's when Jinsoul blanches too.  
  
Jinsoul keeps the shock from rising into her voice. “You-you think I knew her?” Jungeun nods sharply, refusing to meet her stare.  
  
“Um, dark hair, leg wound, looked really young–” Jinsoul cuts her off, shaking her head.  
  
“You killed _Yerim_?” Anger starts to bubble in her chest, and it's something she can't control. She stands up, staring at Jungeun in utter disbelief.  
  
“I'm sorry,” Jungeun babbles, “I just saw you next to her in rank a few times and she always kept looking at you. All the time. For everything.”  
  
Jinsoul stiffens again, brushing the snow off her uniform. “No,” she says, picking up the firewood from the pile. “That's on you, Jungeun, but now I have to live with knowing it was _you_ who did that to me, did that to _her_. Did you know how long she suffered for?”  
  
“I'm sorry,” Jungeun repeats, “I couldn't have known. I never did.”  
  
Jinsoul swears, kicking at a boulder at the edge of the clearing. Her voice rises steadily until she's crying out. She picks up a rock and hurls it against the frozen surface of a shallow pond, resonating in the silence with a dull thud. “Why can't it be someone else? Why the _hell_ does everything that happens here _have_ to be-”  
  
A flashlight beam interrupts them, slicing through the trees. Jungeun notices it first, and Jinsoul catches her line of sight.  
  
“Jung Jinsoul, I swear to god,” the voice hisses, and she can hear the crunching of snow underfoot. Jinsoul's teary-eyed glaze locks with Jungeun's startled one, and they immediately understand the situation. Jungeun sprints off, weaving through trees, and Jinsoul retraces her steps until she covers up the footprints at a reasonable distance. She's still bewildered and nauseous at Jungeun's confession, but that can wait for later as Haseul appears through into the clearing.  
She's clearly tired and concerned, but she nods at the bundle of firewood in Jinsoul’s arms.  
  
“You were gone for an hour,” Haseul says, adjusting her fur hat. She squints, eyeing the pack dangling from Jinsoul’s arm. It's made of red cloth, a clear warning sign that it's not supposed to be with her. “Where'd you get that?”  
  
“Found it, but there's nothing good inside,” Jinsoul says, lying through her teeth. “This must have been abandoned ground.”  
  
“Then get rid of it and get back to camp. We've been waiting on you, you know better than to wander off like this.”  
  
“I'm sorry.”  
  
It hurts as she echoes the last words Jungeun said to her about killing Yerim. She's not sure that she can forgive Jungeun just yet, and she's glad as she trudges after Haseul that she has time to make that decision.  
  
Because this is what she gets for loving someone from the Republic. It's what she gets for being a traitor, and it's what she gets for giving into anything she wants for herself.  
  
  
  
  
The worst things always come free. And Jinsoul is no stranger to that concept.  
  
The initial clash is horrible. The Federation brings out biochemical gasses and weapons, and as the bodies in red drop to the ground, Jinsoul can only think of one thing. _Serves you right._  
  
The violence is a sort of magic at this point – it's able to wipe her memory clean of everything she's learned since meeting Jungeun.  
  
Federation and Republic troops blast at each other with their tactics, day after day of capture, pushbacks, and of course, the dead. At this point, days bleed into nights and become indistinguishable as dust in the air lingers and cloaks the sun from view. Jinsoul pushes on. She's a little smarter than the rest, a little stronger than the rest, and a lot more persistent than the rest. After bruises, shell shock and broken bones prove to be no deterrent to her, she becomes her cohort's most valuable fighter.  
  
She's become so numb that she joins the medical forces as a scout: find her fellow soldiers, and bring them back. Dead or alive. Usually, Jinsoul finds more bodies than living people, and sometimes there's nothing left of them other than bone fragments or pink mist.  
  
Yeojin cries when Jinsoul brings them back dead, that the only thing she can do is note their ID before the mass funeral. But Jinsoul keeps her mask of a face on, because she's gotten too good to shed tears.  
  
Or at least she thinks she is.  
  
  
  
The dust doesn't clear. It doesn't make exceptions for either side, and when another shell blasts through their defenses, Jinsoul only cringes because it means more dead for her to tend to.  
  
She doesn't expect this scene. Jinsoul's not at all prepared when she sees one of the Federation's newest recruits, huddled in fear behind a half-destroyed brick wall, a distance intentionally left between her and the Republic Redcoat lay on their side in the dirt. The soldier's gun is drawn in her direction, a girl Jinsoul recognizes as Hyunjin.  
  
“Are you okay?” Jinsoul eyes the dead Redcoat warily. “How many in your group?”  
  
“Yes, I'm fine. And it's just me,” Hyunjin responds, gun still drawn at the fallen soldier. “I got separated from the rest when the explosion hit.”  
  
“Okay? And why are you planning to shoot and waste a bullet if they're already dead?” Jinsoul starts to approach, referring to Hyunjin's pistol.  
  
“I-I'm not sure if she's really dead-” Hyunjin starts, using her free hand to wipe her face anxiously. “I mean, she was hiding in here too, and I ran in here without checking first and I guess she threw herself on me when everything went off.”  
  
As if on cue, the soldier rolls on her back, limp as a ragdoll, and it's almost comical the way her head lolls to one side. But Jinsoul just can't contain it when she sees the dirt, dust, grime-streaked face of Jungeun staring back at her.  
  
The dam breaks, spilling all the pent-up emotions that Jinsoul tried so hard to conceal.  
  
“ _Fuck,”_ Jinsoul wails, and she ignores Hyunjin's confusion as she rushes to Jungeun's side. She gives the girl a physical once-over and it's evident by the broken bones that she won't last long in this condition. “Help me get her to Yeojin.”  
  
“What? But she's-”  
  
“I don't _care,”_ Jinsoul bites, demanding that the young soldier help her with the makeshift stretcher, made from broken boards and tarp. Once she gets into the medical area, she just has to ignore Yeojin's gawking at Jungeun's torn, battered and bloody red uniform, at the whole situation, really.  
  
“You've got to be _kidding_ me,” Yeojin says, too calm for Jinsoul's comfort. “I could get put on trial for this, and _you?_ What's gotten into you?”  
  
“I don't care,” Jinsoul pleads, as the little monitor Jungeun's hooked up to gives a short beep, letting her know that she's alive for just one second more. “She needs help, I know this looks bad but she's done more for us than you think.” Yeojin stares at the older girl for a second, but for whatever reason, resigns.  
  
“Step outside and keep watch.” Yeojin turns to the pack of bandages, syringes, and readers on the tray next to her. “Leave me alone for a minute.”  
  
Jinsoul stares at the ground for those few minutes she's sent out, and loses herself in thought until she's beckoned to come back in. She refuses to consider the alternative.  
  
Jungeun is miraculously awake when she enters again, and meets Jinsoul's eyes in a panic as pain floods her senses. A guttural groan makes its way out of her throat as her head falls back onto the pillow again. “It hurts,” she cries, but even her plea is weaker than it should be. Yeojin covers Jungeun's ears with her palms, before turning to Jinsoul again.  
  
“I didn't have to look for long to see what's wrong with her. There's so much internal bleeding that those broken legs seem like the least of her worries,” Yeojin starts, reading the heart monitor. “I'm sorry Jinsoul, the best trauma surgeons in the Capitol couldn't fix her at this point, even if they wanted to. I don't think anyone could fix this amount of blast trauma.”  
  
“But she'll be okay?” Jinsoul knows she sounds nothing but delusional and desperate, and she's grasping for straws, for anything that would mean Jungeun would stay alive.  
  
“My _god,”_ Yeojin sighs, looking Jinsoul right in the face. “You said this one threw herself onto a grenade to save one of us? That's... I don't know, but it doesn't mean that she just gets to live, Jinsoul. There's nothing I can do, there's nothing anyone can do, cutting her open or not. It's too late.” She takes her hands off the girl's ears, shaking her head. “I need to leave now.”  
  
And with that, Yeojin steps out of the curtained region, leaving Jungeun alone on the table, wheezing and making all the little machines she's hooked up to beep and stutter erratically.  
  
Jinsoul feels like her head's stuffed with cotton wool. Jungeun opens her mouth slightly, forming into the slightest of smiles.  
  
“Don't cry,” Jungeun rasps, and that's all Jinsoul needs to burst into tears, completely and utterly. She grasps Jungeun's hand for dear life and in between sobs, confesses.  
  
“You can't leave me here,” Jinsoul sniffles. “You're gonna leave me and this whole place is gonna go dark. Kim Jungeun, I don't know _myself_ anymore and I need you here so I can figure it out because I only know that I love you.”  
  
“I love you too,” Jungeun whispers, and she grips Jinsoul's hand harder. “But don't think like that. I took something from you. It was my turn to give it back.”  
  
“ _No,”_ Jinsoul says, and it's the millionth time she's said the word in the past hour but it seems so finite now, so limited because her world, her Jungeun is slipping through her fingertips with each passing second and she can't get it together and it can only get worse from here.  
  
They're so unfinished, so unpolished, with so much potential and with so many different directions they could have taken, and it's so, so _fucked up_ that in any other universe, they would have been destined to do more than just suffer together. And she knows Jungeun feels that too.  
  
When their lips meet for the very last time, it breaks her when Jungeun uses her last bit of strength to clasp her hands behind Jinsoul's neck.  
  
And it's the sole most bittersweet feeling Jinsoul will ever get to experience in her life.  
  
“I'm not going to leave you forever,” Jungeun says, and her breath is hot, her words more and more wispy as she addresses Jinsoul and Jinsoul only. “Only here. I promise.” Her eyes flutter shut, and her thumb traces the back of Jinsoul's hand before suddenly going slack, releasing her grip.  
  
“Okay,” Jinsoul says, tears continuing to slip down her cheeks as the machines, one by one, cease their warning sounds. She doesn't bother to unplug them. “I'll see you soon. I promise that too.”  
  
The sounds keep ringing in her ears as she walks out of med bay for the last time.  
  
  
  
  
  
**OFFICIAL CERTIFICATE OF DEATH:**  
  
**_JUNG JINSOUL | ID #19024843 DOB 19970613_**  
  
CAUSE: BLOOD LOSS; 14 BULLET WOUNDS TO CHEST CAVITY. FRONT LINES OF BATTLE.  
  
SPECIAL NOTES: HANDWRITTEN NOTE IN FRONT COAT POCKET.  
READ:  
“SEE YOU THERE SOON. KJE.”  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I have to say a big thank you to my friends who provided me this wonderful AU and lowkey kicked my ass to finish this, hehe. 
> 
> \- hmu on twitter: @cosmicfiavor


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